Editorial: GOP on suicide mission with shutdown ultimatum

The nation once again found itself held hostage this weekend, as Congress careened wildly toward a shutdown at midnight last night.

We know, you’re shaking your head. You can’t believe we are doing this again. Neither can we.

Like a recurring nightmare, the ultra-conservative tea party faction of the House Republicans is once again threatening to shut down the government if the White House doesn’t knuckle under to its demand to strip President Obama’s health care law of financing.

The timing is no coincidence: The threat of withholding funding from the government at the beginning of the fiscal year is a huge bargaining chip. This year, the timing is even better for those opposed to “Obamacare” — the moment of decision comes just as the most important feature of the law, insurance exchanges for those previously unable to obtain health care coverage, — goes live today.

This may seem like a political winner for the 40 or so tea party lawmakers in the House leading the charge against the health care law, but it’s wrong for their party and wrong in every other respect. The only proper response to this political ultimatum is “no.”

In the first place, it won’t work. No matter what happens in the House, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas — one of the early proponents of the shutdown gimmick — has come to the realization that there’s no chance it can win Senate approval. This rare moment of candor from Cruz brought howls of protest from allies in the House who claimed he’d surrendered before the fight even began. But he’s right. This ploy is going nowhere.

The health care law is not perfect. President Obama has acknowledged as much. The transition period will be particularly difficult. Change always is. But holding the government hostage to demands that the law be killed outright or delayed is not the way for lawmakers to deal with the challenge of implementing a new program.

Over the weekend, House Republicans offered something of a deal, saying they would sign off on funding if Obamacare was delayed for a year. The move has zero chance of being passed in the Senate, controlled by Democrats.

So here we sit. With the clock ticking.

Instead of using confrontational tactics designed to sink health care reform, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle should work with the White House to amend the law wherever it seems wise to do so. That’s the way the government has dealt with programs like Social Security and Medicare — which critics called disruptive and problematic when they were hatched — for decades.

Those programs weren’t perfect from the start. But they’ve improved and prolonged the lives of millions of Americans over the years and become indispensable government services. The Affordable Care Act offers the same promise by extending the coverage net to millions who lack health insurance. It bans lifetime maximums, pre-existing condition denials and non-reimbursed emergency treatments. That will help those who already enjoy coverage, as well.

House Speaker John Boehner, of Ohio, charged with the unenviable task of leading a fractured House Republican majority, has yielded to the most extreme voices in his caucus over the Obamacare showdown. He should know better.

Previous attempts to hold the government hostage haven’t worked out very well for his party. This one won’t either.

Undeterred by a host of arguments on the House floor, Republicans on Friday voted 230-189 to defund the president’s health care law, including our own U.S Rep. Patrick Meehan, R-7 of Upper Darby. Shame on him. This will only add new evidence to the president’s long-standing assertion that the House is in the grip of a reckless minority.

This weekend’s move to delay implementation of Obamacare likely will go nowhere as well.

There is still time to pull back from the brink, although that now is a matter of hours, not days or weeks.

The truth this standoff never should have gotten this far. A Republican Party that controls one half (the House of Representatives) of one third (the legislative branch) of the government cannot override the majority. Trying vainly to do so may seem like good politics, but it isn’t. It’s a suicide mission.